


Dichotomy

by shinealightonme



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Crimes & Criminals, Family, Gen, Moral Ambiguity, Team, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-04
Updated: 2009-03-04
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:13:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightonme/pseuds/shinealightonme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Few things in Elle Greenaway's life have been easy, and none of them have been simple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dichotomy

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://capeofstorm.livejournal.com/profile)[**capeofstorm**](http://capeofstorm.livejournal.com/), [](http://t-vo0810.livejournal.com/profile)[**t_vo0810**](http://t-vo0810.livejournal.com/), and [](http://lady-of-scarlet.livejournal.com/profile)[**lady_of_scarlet**](http://lady-of-scarlet.livejournal.com/) for their support. Originally posted [on LJ](http://shinealightonme.livejournal.com/20919.html).

Elle is eight and old enough to know better, according to her mother, but she can't help it. The dress is itchy and ugly and too hot, and while Mami is busy she goes back to her room and changes into a shirt and skirt. She hides out in the bathroom, and there are so many well-meaning relatives fluttering around the house and getting in the way that her mother doesn't notice she's missing. By the time Mami thinks to ask where she is, it's time to go and if she makes them stop to change back into the dress, they'll be late.

In deference to her mother's wishes, the shirt is black. The skirt is green and yellow and blue, and when she wears it her father says she looks like springtime. She likes the way his eyes scrunch up in a smile when he says that, so she wears it a lot.

She can't really see why Mami wants her to wear the dress so much, anyway. Her dad wouldn't be mad that she wasn't wearing all black, like Mami thought was appropriate. He wouldn't be able to say that she looked like springtime, either, but she can imagine, as she looks at his pale and still face, that his eyes are scrunching up in a smile.

-

Elle is sitting in a church for the first time in six years. She doesn't want to be here, especially not today of all days. The early morning light is streaming through stained glass windows and dappling the floor in a rainbow of colors, and she stares at the patterns they make because it's easier than looking at the altar. She pulls her jacket more tightly around herself, keeping out the spring chill but not feeling any warmer.

With every Amen, she retreats into herself a little more, hoping she looks reverent or at least just tired, but not really caring if some depression or anger or disappointment makes itself clear in her manner.

She doesn't think she'll make it to the closing prayer, but she does, somehow, though she stays seated as those around her rise and kneel. A few of them give her strange looks, but it doesn't matter; it's an accomplishment for her just to be here, listening to this priest talk about resurrection and redemption when she no longer believes in either.

-

Elle is sure, at first, that she must have heard him wrong. She asks him to repeat himself, thinking that her ears are tricking her, or that this is some test, but he says it again: he's breaking up with her. He's found someone else. He wants her to move out, as soon as possible.

She can't accept what she's hearing, that it's over. She's always frowned on the childish notion that love will last forever, but she's never actually thought about this ending. She cares for him more than any other guy she's been with, and she's been with him for so long now – she just thought things could stay the way they were, forever.

She yells at him for making her leave her home because she can't yell about the things she's really mad about. They split the rent and utilities, she reminds him, and she has just as strong a claim to it as he does; stronger, in fact, because it's her furniture. The thought of him bringing his new girlfriend here, sleeping with her in Elle's bed, is enough to snap her fully out of shock and into anger.

They fight, getting louder and louder until their neighbors threaten to call the cops; if Elle weren't a federal agent, they probably wouldn't have bothered with the warning. He leaves, finally, and says she can keep the apartment. It doesn't feel like a victory, not when he slams the door shut, or when she throws his stuff out the window, or when she takes a two-hour shower that evening, trying to scrub the feel of him off her skin. It just eventually stops feeling like a failure, which she supposes is better than nothing.

-

Elle is acting tough because she doesn't want to be treated like a freshman; she can't stand bullies, and she'd rather figure things out for herself than accept an offer of help.

When a freshman boy carelessly runs into her in the hallway she pushes back a little harder than she needs to. He starts to take offense before he sees who it is he bumped into. She doesn't look fourteen; she could pass for sixteen, and he thinks he's pissed off an upper classman. He apologizes, and she tells him to be more careful next time, her tone sharp enough that he'll remember but nice enough to confuse him.

By the end of the week, she's earned some respect from her classmates, and even has a bit of a following. She can answer the teachers' questions but doesn't suck up. She's thin and pretty but wears plain second-hand clothes carelessly and never bothers with her hair. She talks back to other students, even upper classmen, and doesn't hide her opinions about anyone. She never _tries_, and they're amazed, impressed, jealous; but it means she doesn't really belong to any of them, either.

-

Elle is a murderer. The reality of that creeps slowly over her, and it's familiar. She's been here before, pleading self-defense, but last time was the genuine article.

She remembers last time like it was yesterday, and it's so very easy to take on that same shaken, distant tone; blink too much, repeat herself and stumble over her words a little; and it's enough to fool the cops.

It's not enough to fool the team, and she's knows she's got an entirely new world of problems the next time she has to talk to them.

She doesn't regret a thing.

-

Elle is a Greenaway, not a Ramirez. She won't call this man "father," either, even if it makes Mami get teary-eyed and lecture her on family and love and moving on. There's moving on and then there's letting go, she says to Mami, but only when Mr. Ramirez isn't around; she's pretty sure that would cross a line, and getting sent to her room would make it difficult to maintain the moral high ground.

Mr. Ramirez soothes his wife whenever she gets most upset with her daughter and tells her that Elle will accept him – she just needs more time. His wife believes him; Elle doesn't. He tries to convince her with small little presents and inquires about her day, offers of advice and jokes he's picked up – all of this in Spanish. It's practically the only language they speak at home, now, and Elle's little brother gets confused sometimes on his homework and can't always remember which is the English word and which is the Spanish word. Elle fights hard to keep the accent out of her voice, just as she fights Mami for the right to keep her name.

Mami's husband gets her to let her guard down, eventually, but he's not her father, and he never tries to be. Mami was the only one who thought that was possible. He is less successful with Elle's older brother, and Elle doesn't know which Danny resents more; that Mr. Ramirez stripped him of his position as man of the house, or that he hadn't done it sooner.

Things change one morning when she comes into the kitchen to find Mr. Ramirez cooking breakfast. She's never seen him cook before, and is more than a little surprised to discover that he's good at it. It makes her and Danny exchange a look, though, because Mami loves cooking for and babying her children, and she only ever let Daddy cook when she was sick – and one other time.

For the next few months, Mr. Ramirez makes them breakfast and runs all the errands and treats Mami like one of Abuela's porcelain dolls. Elle is nervous about what will happen when the baby is born, and how he will change the fragile dynamics in the Ramirez (Greenaway) household. And then Mami tells her the news, and it's worse than she thought, because there will soon be _two_ little Ramirez boys in the house, and she's not sure she can handle it.

But she remembers how Daddy laughed and smiled every day when Mami was pregnant with Justin, and how happy he was when he asked Elle if she wanted to have more siblings, and she can't really find it in her heart to feel anything but love for the Ramirez boys – they become honorary Greenaways, months before she ever meets them. Mr. Ramirez does not – because she still believes there's a difference between moving on and letting go – but he holds a peculiar distinction as the man who sired her brothers, and they come to an understanding. While he'll never be "Papi," as he is to her baby brothers, he does eventually become "Mario."

-

Elle is in agony; there's too much pain for her to make sense of things. Time, in particular, seems to be playing tricks on her. She can hardly remember what happened, though it was only a split second ago. She is able to wonder, briefly, what happened to the 'life flashing before your eyes' cliché, before all capacity for thought leaves her. Her world narrows to the fire burning in her chest, and the sensation of the shooter sticking his fingers inside the wound.

She feels that for a long time.

-

Elle is nine and her neighbor Jo is thirteen, which automatically makes her So Much Smarter Than Elle. She's cynical and opinionated and explains things to Elle when her mother answers her questions with 'when you're older', and Danny tells her to get lost.

Jo tells her about sex, and even if Elle doesn't really understand it, she knows it's adult and so it's exciting to whisper about. Jo wears makeup and teaches Elle how to put on mascara and foundation and eyeliner, but Elle has to wash it off before Mami can see it because young girls shouldn't wear makeup. Elle doesn't really want to wear it, but she likes the secrecy and the conspiracy of learning something forbidden. Jo has a crush on Elle's older brother, and even though Elle knows it's the only reason Jo bothers with her, she doesn't care. She isn't going to turn down such a useful source of information over a little thing like that, even if her opinion of Jo is lowered somewhat by knowing Jo's opinion of Danny.

Jo's parents are getting a divorce and she lives with her mom and very rarely talks about her father. This is where Elle gets the idea. When people ask her about her dad, she says that her parents are divorced. She knows all the language, knows the sorts of things to say, talk about lawyers and alimony; it's the most useful thing that Jo's ever taught her.

-

Elle is old enough that age is no longer much of an issue, and Spencer Reid is young enough to be defensive about it, but he is undoubtedly the smartest person she's ever met. She's still getting used to not understanding a lot of the things he says.

Like now – he's staring in horrified fascination at the photos of the victims that are plastered on the board in front of him – two dead, four more critically wounded in the hospital, and latest two missing – and he says it's just like Schrodinger's cat as though that explains everything.

Elle is half-sure that she's heard that name before, maybe a long time ago, but she doesn't remember, and even if she did, Reid loves to explain these things. She asks him who Schrodinger is and he doesn't let the opportunity slide.

Erwin Schrodinger, he was a physicist who was best known for a thought experiment – a hypothetical situation where a cat was placed in a box with a radioactive substance and a flask of hydrocyanic acid. If the atom decays, the acid is released, killing the cat. Reid waves a hand to dismiss feline homicide as nothing of great significance; he hasn't gotten to the point yet, which is just as well, because Elle is starting to hate this Schrodinger guy.

He's speeding up and gesturing more vehemently now. If the atom doesn't decay, the cat is fine. There's an equal probability that the atom will decay in the space of an hour that it won't. Unless you were to open the box, it would be impossible to tell whether the cat had died or not, so the cat is said to be alive and dead at the same time.

Elle thinks that's ridiculous, and says so. Something is what it is whether you know it or not.

The unsub doesn't think it's so ridiculous, Hotch muses. Hotch can see where Reid's going with this better than Elle can; he understands Reid better than she does, but after all, they've known each other longer. He's able to pick up the explanation: the unsub takes two victims at a time, and neither knows if the other is still alive.

Morgan nods. Psychological torture; fits the profile for a sadist.

Elle's not convinced. Doesn't it seem sort of elaborate? There are easier ways of torturing someone.

He doesn't care about the kill, Hotch reminds her. He develops ways of doing what interests him.

He can torture them all he wants, Elle points out, but why does he keep them alive?

She'll never get tired of the look that Reid gets on his face when he's got the answers. The unsub doesn't want them to live and he doesn't want to kill them. That's what he's interested in, the state between life and death.

Elle snaps her fingers and grins. That could be the stressor – family member, someone close to him, gets sick or falls into a coma or something, and he gets obsessed about death and probability.

Morgan's already got Garcia on the phone, telling her to check hospital admittance records, and there's a sudden sense of urgency in the room. It's putting Elle on edge, making her anxious to be _out there_, doing something, preferably chasing someone. Instead she grabs Reid by the shoulder and twirls him around, and he's thrown off by the motion but catches himself pretty quickly and when he looks up she's grinning wickedly. How'd you get so smart, she asks him, and he must have caught some of the energy in the room too, because instead of giving her a lecture on eidetic memories and different methods of quantifying intelligence he quirks one corner of his mouth up into a half-smile and says that, well, he had help. She laughs calls him a crazy kid and then Morgan says that Garcia's got something and it's all business again, controlled energy and reason.

-

Elle is pissed off and wishing that anyone else in the world could do this – but there is no one else. She stands outside the door for half-an-hour, and would have stood there longer, but one of the twins opens the door and shouts _Elle!_ and she smiles back at him weakly, because it would make things easier if he weren't so excited to see her.

Next is the greeting she was expecting and dreading, Mami rushing down the hall to give her kisses on both cheeks and a scolding for not visiting all week. Mario follows more slowly and he can see that Elle looks more pained than happy and he sends the boys off to the kitchen to get food. Mami wants to feed Elle herself, because she looks so skinny, doesn't she ever eat or does she spend all her time studying? But Elle and Mario both insist that she stay, and they make their way to the living room and Elle can't put it off any longer. She has to tell them.

Mami cries, and Mario puts an arm around her and Elle has no idea what to do with herself. The boys come rushing in, food forgotten at the sound of their mother's distress, and the words aren't any easier to say the second time. She curses Danny a thousand times in her head but somehow manages to tell them what he's done. The twins are hurt and horrified and scared, but Justin looks _lost_ in a way that she hasn't seen in years, that she associates with uncomfortable black dresses and a quietly respectful family gathering, and so she throws her arms around him and he cries.

Mami wants to go visit Danny, but Elle is too mad at him for putting her in this position. Let his new friends visit him, the ones he likes so much that he'll do anything for. Mario gives her a disproving look but doesn't push the issue. Instead, she's back on babysitting duty while he takes Mami to the jailhouse. On the one hand it's never been easier, because the boys are too quiet and subdued to get into any trouble, but on the other, it's never been more difficult to be with them. Even when they drive her crazy with misbehaving and fighting they still make her smile, but not today, and she'll never forgive Danny for those silent hours.

-

Elle is never crazy about talking to victim's families at the best of times, but this went beyond a hatred for being the bearer of badness and an uncertainty around crying women. This is far worse, because it's taking her back to when two police officers came to the door to give Elle the worst news of her life. Only this time, she's on the other side of the door, watching as some other cop's widow stands there waiting for what they have to say and knowing that it isn't good.

Elle can't even look too angry or too involved; she has to be in control to reassure them that they'll catch the guy who did this. And they will, she'll never give up on that, but she _wants_ to be angry with this. She doesn't want to stay objective, but she tries anyway, reminding herself that this is _not_ her father. He didn't die on the job. His daughter didn't tell him I hate you instead of goodbye. The parallels aren't perfect, but that doesn't do much to calm her down.

It isn't until they leave the house and they're driving back to the station, no better off in their investigation despite the family's information about their newest victim, that she really starts to try to get a hold of herself, because Hotch is giving her one of _those_ looks. The kind of looks you get when you try to keep a secret among profilers. She hates those looks.

He asks if she's all right with this and she nearly takes it as an accusation of weakness before she realizes that would be an overreaction – and if she's over-reacting, maybe she's not so all right after all. But it doesn't matter if she's okay or not, it matters if that little girl they've left behind, half-orphaned and bewildered, is okay. She just tells him oh I'm fine and he doesn't look like he's buying it but he'll indulge her in this lie.

-

Elle is stunning in black and red. Mami is unhappy that she doesn't wear a dress that's a little longer, covers more of her back, is just _more_, but Danny rolls his eyes and says half the girls there will be wearing less, anyway. Her friends who took her shopping and modeled countless dresses with her think she looks great, and they're the one's Elle's taking advice from. Her date thinks she looks great, too, and he keeps his eyes on her more than on the road. Elle worries, a little, that they'll crash if he doesn't look where he's going, but she doesn't say anything. They're in his dad's sports car and it's seems wrong, somehow, to worry about safety in a sports car.

Her feet are killing her by the third song of the dance, so she tosses her shoes off without a care and dances barefoot. Her friends follow suit and soon they're all laughing and dancing together and their boyfriends and dates are excluded, shut out in their own circle, until the first slow song of the night.

It's just as well she got rid of the heels, because her date is not that much taller than she is. He's fit from track and weight training, though, and later that night she realizes just how strong he is when he pushes her down against the backseat of his dad's sports car. She laughs and tells him to stop and he doesn't so she tells him again, this time without the laughter. The third time she has to tell him, she stresses the point with a knee to his groin and, when he winces enough to allow for it, an elbow to his nose. He curses at her but she doesn't waste a second in scrambling out of the backseat, throwing the door open, and running out of the car. She leaves the fancy heels with him, and her feet are torn up and bloody by the time she gets home. She has to wait outside for fifteen minutes before her breathing and heartbeat slow down enough they won't give her away.

Mami is full of questions, worry, and indignation, to which Elle replies that she lost the shoes back at the dance, her date felt sick and so didn't walk her to the door, and yes, she's fine. Danny gets a better look at her feet but doesn't mention it, either trusting her to make her own choices or just not caring enough to say anything.

The other girls at school are full of stories on Monday, and Elle has her own, all of them damning and none of them true. By the time the next dance comes around, her date can't find anyone at the school willing to go with him. He finds someone from another school, and when Elle tries to talk to her, the girl assumes she's a jealous ex and doesn't listen to anything she has to say. Elle spends a good chunk of the evening watching them, and wondering, and despairing.

-

Elle is learning to drive because her roommate can't believe that she doesn't have her license yet. She explains over and over again that New York isn't like California, that people can and do go anywhere on public transportation, but the woman is still amazed, and determined to teach her how to drive. Elle accuses her of just wanting a chance to show off the flashy car her parents bought her for her birthday, but goes along with her plans anyway, because she really wants to learn.

It's both less and more fun than Elle had thought it would be. After the thrill wears off, she starts to realize it's just a means to an end – she needs to get somewhere, so she drives. Going to the store isn't any more interesting because she drove than it was when she got a ride or took the bus; it's still just something that needs to be done. But at the same time, it's exciting to feel the car speed up as she steps on the accelerator. It's not that she's an adrenaline junkie – what she can't get over is the feeling of control. With the slightest motion of her hand or foot, she's directing the movement of this large object. She feels powerful.

It's particularly alarming, then, when she stops for a yellow light that the truck behind her had planned on speeding through. Some witness calls the police, and they arrive to find her spewing insults and curses at the other driver in two languages. She's still inside her roommate's car, because her head is throbbing where it banged on the steering wheel and her neck feels funny and she doesn't think she should move too much.

The doctors prescribe a few days of bed rest, which doesn't help matters at home. Her roommate half blames her for the damage done to her car, bemoaning the expense and the fact that it will never be the same again. She knows that it isn't Elle's fault, but can't help but hold a small grudge.

Elle offers to pay for the repairs and is refused, which is just as well. She doesn't have the money, but she would have found it somewhere, happily, if only the collision had been her fault. She wishes that it had been; driving has lost all of it's fun now. She does it when she has to, but she doesn't look forward to it anymore.

-

Elle is willing to accept the possibility that Morgan means well, but she's still annoyed. She hates surprises, and she hates being manhandled, and she's starting to hate him just a bit, too, because he's having entirely too much fun.

He just laughs when she asks if she can take the blindfold off and tells her no, we're not there yet. She grumbles that they didn't humiliate Reid this much when it was his birthday, so why are they doing it to her? From the backseat of Morgan's car, Reid argues that his birthday was embarrassing enough, thank you, and JJ just laughs and teases him that he had fun. He doesn't disagree.

Elle slowly lifts one hand up, like she's just going to scratch her cheek, but the moment she's got a finger on the blindfold Garcia tsks and takes hold of her hand. Don't ruin the surprise. She sighs dramatically and leans back in defeat, but the anticipation _is_ kind of fun, after all.

It's several minutes more before they get wherever they're going, and Reid jumps out of the car quickly to open her door for her and help her out. How chivalrous of you, she comments drily, but you could make it easy for both of us and just let me see where we are.

Soon, Morgan promises, and he's guiding her on one side while Reid's got the other. Wherever they are, it's _loud_ – people talking loudly, and a lot of cars driving by. Elle tries following the conversation, because JJ and Garcia sound so animated and excited, and really, this is a good opportunity to talk to the two members of the team she doesn't know as well – but it's taking a fair amount of focus just to walk steadily.

They finally, _finally_ stop and take off her blindfold – and now she hardly even minds the manhandling and the shenanigans because she's looking at RFK Memorial Stadium, and the Nationals are playing the Mets. Tonight. Morgan's flashing five tickets at her and grinning so smugly that she hits him on the shoulder before she hugs him and says thank you.

-

Elle is ready to go, but there are procedures that need to be followed lest they rush in and get someone killed. Her gun is resting snugly in her hand and she's just waiting for the signal to _go_. The tension was climbing and climbing and they should have gone in by now. What the hell's taking so long? She has to whisper her question, which robs her words of some of their intensity, but she can yell at her superiors later if she thinks they deserve it; for now stealth is key.

She hates stealth. She'd much rather they just go in already. The building is empty except for their suspect, so what could they possible be waiting for?

The answer comes back to her, delivered in another whisper; the door's wired, we need to get bomb squad in here. That doesn't make sense, she says, and she's too caught up in what she's thinking to worry about whispering. The agents on either side of her shush her but she repeats again in a whisper it doesn't make sense.

The agents around her just look annoyed so she leaves her position, ignoring their protests, to go find the lead. He's walked far enough away from the house that he can safely talk on the phone, presumably with someone from bomb squad, but if she's right they don't have time for niceties. She interrupts his conversation, saying that the door isn't rigged, it must be some sort of ruse, and if their suspect's setting up some charade for them than it means he knows they're onto him.

Her supervisor would like to know _how_, exactly, she can tell that the door isn't wired without seeing it and without any experience with explosives. She tries to tell him that it doesn't make sense; their suspect is too cautious and much too concerned with self-preservation.

He's determined to do this by the book, though, and he's not risking any of his agents because Elle's got a hunch. She wants to argue but he's made up his mind and that leaves her with just one choice. She starts walking back toward the house, though it takes the other agents a few moments to realize she's not getting back in position. There are whispered orders for her to stop, but she ignores them, sprinting the last few steps to the door. They can't even stop her, either, because they're falling back. She's going to get in trouble for this later, assuming she's right; if she's wrong, she's never going to know it.

But she is right and she pulls open the door without incident. She grips her gun more tightly as she steps inside, checks that the front hall is clear, and the other agents are following her in now but she thinks she's heard something. She makes her way as quickly as possible to the back of the house where she finds their suspect, holding what looks like hair that was taken from the victims as trophies. He's standing over the toilet just about to flush them and she slams him into the wall a split second before he has the chance to. She takes the locks of hair from him as another agent cuffs him and she wonders how much harder a time the prosecution would have had without this physical evidence to connect him to the crimes.

Her supervisor is scowling at her in that way that's supposed to remind her that she can't ignore orders whenever she feels like it, but as usual she hardly cares. She was right and they got the guy, so what is there to worry about?

-

Elle is being reasonable – really, she is – so why does Mami refuse to understand? It's Seattle, it's a few hours on a plane. She'll call, every week, come visit on the holidays – provided she's not working – it'll be just like when she was at school, honestly, they'll see her so much that they'll get sick of her.

There's a little voice in the back of her head whispering that she knows why Mami is so upset, that after losing two husbands and one son no woman should have to lose her daughter, too. And Elle reassures her family and that little voice that they aren't losing her, and she wonders if that's true. She wonders if she wants to get lost, if that's why she's taking the job in the unfamiliar city and not the job in New York that she never told anyone about.

She wonders if maybe she's already lost them, or if she ever really had them, and immediately berates herself for that. It's no use, though; she can't stop thinking how Mami cried more for Mario than she ever did for Daddy.

Justin drives her to the airport, and he's talking the whole time about sports – you oughta stay in New York, chica, you really want to root for the Mariners instead of the Mets? She rolls her eyes and she's grateful he's being so lighthearted about the whole thing, because she's had enough of everyone acting like they're never going to see her again, like she's betraying them.

It doesn't last, though; as he gives her a goodbye hug he asks her if she's sure she wants to do this, and it might not be fair of her to snap at him but she can't help it; and once she starts, she finds that there so much more she has to say than she'd ever thought.

Justin doesn't say a word while she tears his head off, and she idly wonders, when she finally stops talking and stands there breathing heavily like she just ran a race, how he ever managed to grow up so calm. Mami is a loose bundle of emotions, one always spilling over and threatening to drown her; Danny has an icy exterior that mostly, but not completely, hid his dislike and resentment of his family; the twins are little demon whirlwinds of energy and noise; and Elle knows herself to be less than evenly tempered, passionate and fiery and easily irritated or vexed. She's aggravated by his patience and composure and she wishes just once he'd act his age so she wouldn't have to feel so immature.

That's not going to happen today, though, and he just tells her that they're all worried about her, and will she be sure to take good care of herself? She's angry enough about the whole thing that she doesn't really answer, just spares him the smallest of hugs and a reserved "See you later," before leaving.

-

Elle is pathetically, inappropriately grateful when the train door opens and the next voice she hears is Reid's – quiet, cautious, stumbling slightly. He shouldn't be here – what the hell are Gideon and Hotch _thinking?_ – but the selfish part of her is glad, because he's one of the people she'd most wanted to see again before she died. It seems strange that it's so easy to love someone when bullets are about to fly.

-

Elle is not panicking. She doesn't have _time_ to panic, she's too busy thinking as fast as she can, weighing options, trying to remember exactly where everyone in the house is, and wondering how the hell this had happened. This wasn't supposed to happen; that was the whole reason they had a policeman standing outside the house every day and night, the reason Elle had taken a semester off school and moved back in with her family.

They were supposed to be protected, but their protection seems to have failed them, because a couple of thugs – Danny's _friends_ – have just broken down their front door and one of them is pointing a gun at one of the twins.

Elle's so mad she can hardly see straight – what the hell is wrong with them, threatening a little _boy_ – but she has to stay calm because Mami just walked into the room to investigate the noise and now she looks like she's about to have a heart attack. Another thing to worry about, along with the disturbingly lecherous looks she's getting from the second gangbanger, the one pointing a gun at her, who smirks and comments that Danny never mentioned he had a sister.

She spits out some of the more creative Spanish phrases she can think of that deride his intelligence, hygiene, and manliness, but he's still smirking and his friend joins in, saying they're here to send a message to Danny and they might as well have a little fun with it, right? Mami closes her eyes and starts praying the Padre Nuestros, and when the gangbangers tell her to shut up, she starts praying louder.

Elle takes a second to be proud of her mother before getting worried; Justin's upstairs, shouting down what all the noise is about, and to stop him from coming down she yells back that it's nothing, stay where you are, and she's counting on adolescent indifference to save his life.

They can talk about this, right, can't they just talk, she asks, hating how weak she sounds, but they aren't giving her a lot of choices. Come on, put down the guns, we can just go into the kitchen, no one can see into the kitchen from the street.

They're not interested in anything she has to say and one of them lets her know it, shoving her rudely backwards until she stumbles into the wall. The other thug cautions him not to be too hasty, you should never turn down an invitation to someone's kitchen. His joke, pathetic as it is, startles a bark of laughter from Elle, which makes them glare at her. It doesn't matter; they're pointing her and Mami and her brother into the kitchen and that's what matters.

The gang members haven't thought this out well and they start bickering about what they're going to do now; if we take too long a patrol car might come by and notice the cop stationed here is missing. Do we split up and search the house? Elle can't allow that. Mario's at a doctor's appointment, but there's still her brothers to think of and one of them might do something that winds up getting them shot.

But they're in the kitchen now and she has more options than she had in the hall. The knife block is three feet away on her right and maybe close enough for her to grab one before either of the men could fire a shot. Maybe she could stab the man on the right, even, but by then his friend would surely have had time to shoot her. She could duck and roll, she could use the other one as cover, she could throw the knife block at his head, throw him off balance and buy her more time – she could do something, she just doesn't know what yet.

And then they make it easy for her.

There's a noise from the hall and it nearly stops them fighting for a second, although one of them mutters I told you we should have searched the house, while the other turns to see what the noise was. That's when Elle makes her move, lunging to reach for a knife and by the time the first intruder's got his aim set on her the knife's handle is in her grasp. Her hands are shaking with adrenaline but they somehow manage to find their target, thrusting the blade into his chest three, four times, until he falls over. She thinks she can hear Mami screaming, or maybe that's her, or maybe it's all in her head, she doesn't know. What she does know is that there's still one more armed man in the room and she doesn't have a lot of time.

He's either moving too slowly or it takes less time than she thought to kill someone, because he's only half-turned back to her and she's got all the time in the world to run behind him and press the knife against his throat. She shouts at him to drop the gun, and he obeys with a grimace and a phrase that makes her press harder with the blade and remind him that her mother's in the room and he doesn't get to use that kind of language in front of her.

Mami's looking at her with shock and fear and her brother's crying softly and suddenly it all seems so absurd that she gasps for breath and when she breathes out she's either going to sob or giggle. She doesn't get to find out which, though, because he interprets that gasp as an opportunity or a sign of weakness and he shoves back hard, elbowing her in the stomach. Elle winces and loosens her hold on him just enough for him to break free. She's bent over and glancing at him through hair that's falling in her face and for a second she thinks she's really about to die.

Fuck that, she decides a second later, and when he's got his gun pointed at her she twists around and shoves his hand out of the way. He pulls the trigger anyway and there's a burning where it grazes her shoulder but she doesn't let it stop her. She just grips her knife harder and stabs him in the stomach, crying out a little at the pain the motion causes her. He's in a worse state than she is, though, and this time she does what she should have done in the first place and kills him with one more stroke.

It isn't until he stops moving that it really hits her and she drops to her knees in the middle of the kitchen and the tiled floor is hard but she doesn't notice the pain. She doesn't notice Mami. She doesn't notice the frantic phone calls or the hand shaking her shoulder. She doesn't even notice the cops until they try to take her knife away and she nearly guts them on instinct. This time when she breathes she ends up both laughing and crying.

-

Elle is starting to lose her patience, not to mention her sanity. The house feels more claustrophobic when Mario and Mami are gone than it does when they're around, and if that doesn't seem to make sense all she can figure is that at least when they're home the twins don't treat the bookshelves like staircases.

The third time in the evening she has to pull the boys off of a piece of furniture she's ready to do something drastic; but instead she deposits them in their bedroom, tells them if they want to climb so bad they can climb up to the top bunk, and goes in search of Justin. Surely he's behaving himself.

But he isn't; the sound of gunfire and people shouting leads her straight to his room, where he's watching television much too loudly and what is this supposed to be? she asks in her most serious voice and he looks sheepish as he turns the volume down and explains that it just got loud a second ago, really, it was quieter before.

She rolls her eyes. That's not what she meant at all, why was he watching TV in the first place when he should be doing his homework? His insistence that he finished his homework already is less than impressive, and she reminds him that she's been lying about school for longer than he has and he'll have to do better than that to fool her. He sticks to his story, though, and she throws her hands up in the air and leaves.

She goes back to the twins' room and finds them perched on top of the top bunk, ready to jump. They probably wouldn't hurt themselves too badly – it's not that tall a bed – but they could land badly and there's no reason for them to be getting ideas, anyway. She yells at them to get down, and that means climbing down, not jumping, and when they've meekly done as she told them she asks them what the hell they think they're doing. They exchange a look of I can't believe she just said a bad word, but she puts her hands on her hips so they know she means business.

We were gonna see who was better, Superman or Spiderman, they explain, but what do they mean by that? He thinks Superman/Spiderman is better, they accuse and point at each other at the same time, so I was going to jump further and show him that Spiderman/Superman wins.

Of all the ridiculous reasons to do something, Elle sighs, but they're five, and they're boys, and they excel at finding new ways of causing mayhem. She sets herself up to give them a lecture when instead, inspiration strikes, and she casually asks why Superman and Spiderman are fighting each other when they're both the good guys and they're supposed to catch bad guys. As it turns out, the problem is simple: they don't have any bad guys to fight.

Elle's picking up on some of their energy now, and she's feeling quite mischievous when she points out to them that there is someone else in the house who can play the part of "bad guy." The twins are so excited about the idea that they barely pause to thank her, but when they do it's with a tone of reverence, and at least something's gone well tonight.

She takes her time walking back to Justin's room, smirking at the yelps she can hear from the other end of the hall, and when she gets there it's all she can do not to laugh at the sight that greets her: the twins have crawled on top of Justin and are tugging at his clothes, his hair, demanding that he surrender and give up his evil ways.

He asks her to call them off but she'll only do it if he agrees to do his homework. It's a bargain he's willing to make, so she congratulates the little troublemakers on defeating the schemes of the super villain and suggests they accompany her to the kitchen for a victory feast. The idea is even more appealing to the boys than playing superheroes, and they race out of the room. Elle's following them when she hears Justin grumbling that _she's_ the super villain, and why haven't they tried defeating her? He only sounds half-serious, so she feels fully justified in joking with him. Sulking is not an attractive look, chico. You should have just done your homework in the first place.

Right, _sir_, he teases, you going to arrest me? Because the cop routine doesn't looks so great on you, either. She warns him not to give her ideas or she'll lock him in the bathroom next time she's stuck babysitting.

-

Elle is drunk. She used to drink like this back in college, but she'd given it up and limited herself to a few drinks when she's out with friends, or on special occasions. It's only in recent weeks that she's started drinking this heavily again.

She doesn't really like the alcohol that much and she downs it like medicine – shuts her eyes, doesn't think about it, and drinks it as quick as she can to get it over with. In a way, it is medicine; it numbs her to the feeling of fingers sliding into the hole in her chest, the feeling of her own fingers curled too tightly around a knife, so tightly that she can't let go until the cops are there and bagging the knife as evidence, the feeling of holding in tears for so long that her eyes are aching and her head is killing her and her whole body is tense enough to snap.

Drinking isn't exactly the refuge she'd hoped for, though, because it brings up disturbing new thoughts. How much easier it is, each time, to slip out of the world. How good she's gotten at hiding the truth from her friends. How familiar the numbness is.

This is how she felt lying to Gideon in the hospital, telling him she didn't blame them at all; waving goodbye to Justin and boarding a plane to Seattle; calculating if she could kill two men before either of them could pull the trigger; washing blood and dirt and gravel off her feet; dressing herself in green and blue and yellow and black and hiding from the other mourners.

It occurs to her that her temper is more of a defense mechanism than anything, guarding her against the pervasive chill of that numbness, and she laughs darkly at the thought. Now that it's there, though, she can't let it go, and it keeps gnawing away at her, how comfortable and familiar anger is, how each outburst is a declaration that she's still alive.

Now that she drinks away her nights, inviting the nothingness closer and closer, she has to fight that much harder in the mornings to reassert herself. The battle's getting harder all the time – fighting takes too much thought, and effort, and if she thinks about it too long she could find out something she doesn't want to know. She's scared she'll open the box one day and find out she's been dead all along.

-

Elle is bored more than anything else. She doesn't want to be here, doesn't think she needs to be, but Mami and Justin insisted, and they're so preoccupied with Mario being sick that she figures she'll give them one less thing to worry about.

She's taken a few psychology courses, though, and she's not exactly impressed with this shrink. Still, it isn't like she needs the counseling; she's just here so that when she goes back home and tells everyone she's feeling so much better, they'll all believe her and have something to celebrate. Her family needs that.

She'd told the psychiatrist only the barest of details about the incident when she'd made the appointment; she'd figured that would keep him from asking any really tough questions. Apparently not; the shrink wants to talk about Danny. She just shrugs that there's nothing to say, but even this guy isn't fooled so easily.

He asks her how she feels about Danny. What is she supposed to say to that? Danny is a worthless piece of shit; he's no brother of hers, not any longer. But if she says that, the shrink is probably going to push her further on the point, so she spouts out some nonsense about feeling conflicted – how can she still love him when he's done such terrible things, but he's still her brother, and he _did_ offer to testify against the gang, doesn't that show he's repented? Shouldn't she forgive him? She tries not to roll her eyes, but it's hard not to when she knows Danny's choice was inspired by cowardice, not remorse.

But the shrink is nodding like she's said what he expected her to, and he tells her those are perfectly normal feelings. What a joke.

-

Elle is counting the days until she can go back to school; unfortunately, there's over a month until Danny testifies against his gang, so the threat of further retaliation is still too great. Her family's protection has, at least, been upgraded from police officers to federal agents with some anti-gang task force. They wear suits and talk into headsets and linger about the house, making Mami nervous – and when she gets nervous, she cooks. Several of their assigned security force have gained weight, and it's only Elle's constant teasing that keeps Justin from spending all day in the kitchen eating.

She can't say she's particularly fond of the feds, but she admits grudgingly to herself that they do, at least, seem to be competent, and she'll give them the benefit of the doubt, _for now_.

There is, however, one agent who has caught her interest by virtue of the fact that she seems to have caught his. It's nothing so simple as attraction, as far as she can tell, but he watches her a little too closely and it makes her suspicious. He does not get the benefit of the doubt; at least not until the night he finds her raiding the fridge for a midnight snack and asks her about the incident that happened in this room.

His interest suddenly makes a lot more sense, which is a relief and a nuisance. She's sick to death of talking about what happened, so she just shrugs and tells him it's no big deal. The more she says it, the truer it becomes, and she's been saying it a lot lately.

He's impressed with what she did and wants to know if she's ever considered going into law enforcement. She's strong, fast, decisive, good under pressure, and he thinks she'd make a good agent.

Elle laughs. The very idea is so unlikely. There might have been dreams of patrol, carrying a gun, chasing the bad guys, but those had died along with her childhood the day that two men in uniform came to the house to talk to Mami.

So what is she considering instead that makes law enforcement such a laughable option, and he's less than impressed when she tells him. He just can't picture her in a classroom all day, teaching kids the ABCs, and sure, education is important, but so is public safety. Besides, he doesn't know a lot of teachers who can kill two men in less than a minute, and she's looking pretty at home with that gun.

She looks down at the gun on her side that has already caused such a fuss. Mami doesn't want it in the house, although she had eventually let Elle and Mario talk her around on the point. Elle hasn't told anyone, but she's not entirely comfortable having in the house, and the first time she picked it up her skin crawled. She's getting quite used to wearing it on her belt, but there's no reason for the agent to be getting ideas and she wants to make sure he knows. I got this? To protect my family. You got a problem with that?

There's always going to be something to protect them from. Why not go on the offensive, take out the bastards who hurt innocent people _before_ they get to anyone you know.

He has a point this time, and she's really starting to consider it. Dreams she'd thought long gone were being pushed to the forefront of her mind, so she grabbed the first excuse she could. I don't think I could handle all that crap with taking orders.

This time it's the agent's turn to laugh when he tells her Greenaway, there are orders _everywhere_ you go in life. Politics. You just learn how to play the game.

Right now she doesn't want to learn any games or decide the rest of her life – she just wants to stay alive, and sane, and make sure the same can be said of her family. But it's something to keep in mind.

-

Elle is leaving now, because it's easier than saying goodbye. She knows it's cowardly to sneak out, to avoid their judgment and their pity. Yet she thinks it must be noble, in some way, to give up the friendship and love she holds for these people without once looking back, to spare them the knowledge of how badly they failed her and how broken she really is.

She doesn't think she can explain, and she's afraid that she wouldn't need to – that they would understand without being told. That's what they do, and that's what she can't let them do, not to her. She won't stay here and have the people she loves treat her like a criminal.

She's running away, and worse, she doesn't know where she's running to. She hasn't given it any thought, and standing at her father's grave offered as little solace or guidance as it ever has. She doesn't think she can give up law enforcement, no matter what it's cost her, but she doesn't think she can handle the rules and regulations and red tape any longer.

She knows what happens to people who take the law into their own hands, and she has no intention of being hunted down like one of the criminals. But now that she's shot one man, she's not sure she can still trust herself with a gun.

Maybe she'll take a break. Her baby brothers would be glad of a visit, or she could try and work up the nerve to go see her mother. She could go somewhere far away, escape from memories, or stay in her apartment with a bottle until the money runs out.

She can go back to Seattle; she knows they'll take her back in a heartbeat. She can go back to Brooklyn; maybe if she does enough good in her childhood home she can somehow erase the pain, undo the wrongs. She can go somewhere new, be someone new, drop her family and her identity along with her job and never have to think about any of it again.

She leaves the BAU and gets into her car and for the first time in her life she has no idea where she's going. It doesn't worry her half as much as she'd always thought it would. It's all the same thing now, and she'll be fine, one way or another.


End file.
